


Along the Way

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Other, Polyamory, S1-3AU, Soulmate AU, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 23:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14556018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: When Shield’s two youngest prodigies shake hands for the very first time, their expressions are exactly as you might expect for two people who know they’ve just met their soul mates. But for this particular pair there’s something else as well.Confusion.-Sometimes finding your soulmate(s) is not as simple as it seems. Then again, sometimes what we spend most of our time looking for, has been right under our noses all along.





	Along the Way

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt (paraphrased): FitzSkimmons + Soulmate AU where they have their names marked on each other's wrists but Daisy's is confusing.
> 
> -
> 
> A Soulmate AU woven into canon, S1-3. Started as a drabble and got a tad out of control (oops). There's a little bit of mild angst along the way, but of course, a happy ending <3 Enjoy!

_Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home._

\- Matsuo Basho

-

When Shield’s two youngest prodigies shake hands for the very first time, their expressions are exactly as you might expect for two people who know they’ve just met their soul mates. There’s a coyness, but also an attempt at confidence – one mustn’t embarrass oneself, after all, at such a critical moment. There’s a little fear too; this moment will, after all, define in some way or other, the course of the rest of their lives. There’s also a sense of wonder. It’s like coming across the most beautiful place on Earth and realising with breathless certainty that all of the stories are true.

There’s all of this for FitzSimmons – as the papers will shortly dub them – as cameras snap and flash around them like fireflies. But for this particular pair there’s something else as well. 

Confusion. 

And the fact that there’s confusion is confusing in itself. The Soul Moment is most famous, and most beloved, for resolving confusion, for filling the void, for better or worse pointing people in whichever direction they most need to go. But for FitzSimmons there are as many answers as questions. There is something they’ve each wondered over, at some point or other in their lives, but which they’d hoped, in this moment if not before, to have resolved. 

“You’ve got one too?” Jemma whispers, once they’ve slipped for a moment from the limelight. 

“What do you think it is?” Fitz asks.

“4? 7? E? 5 with little fireworks in it?” Jemma muses. “At least we both have the same thing. That seems to be helpful, somehow.”

“But what does it mean?” Fitz wonders. “Our other soul mate is a wifi password?” 

“FitzSimmons!” Weaver cries with relief, herding them from their stolen private corner. “There you are! Come along, we’re late for canapés and there are a lot of people excited to meet you.” 

-

 That puts an end to their discussion for the day, but neither half of FitzSimmons are wont to let things go. Over the following days, months, years, woven in between their various projects, the two of them share theories back and forth. They read and write papers on all kinds of Soul Mark anomalies. They research cryptography and other alphabets and laugh at the possibility that their soul mate is, somehow, an Ancient Egyptian or a Celt. They piece together translations of more modern languages online, and struggle to come up with anything that sounds remotely like a name, and they’re not quite invested enough to travel the world in search of something potentially more fulfilling. There’s a lot for two genius scientist alien-crime-fighters such as themselves to be doing here at home, these days – too much, even, for just the two of them, and too many opportunities to waste. 

In fact, as it happens – as fate would have it, one could say - one such opportunity is to join Coulson’s team, and that’s where they meet Her.

-

Skye has never told anyone this, but she doesn’t have a Soul Mark. 

She doesn’t know why. It happens, apparently, and most of the time it doesn’t bother her much. She’s not sure she likes the idea of being tied to one person forever, anyway or of having any more of her relationships outside of her control. 

(She definitely doesn’t like the way the nuns and some of her families talk about her, though. Like she’ll be alone forever. What a tragedy it is, they say; what a shame. She might not have willingly told anyone, but the disadvantage of visible marks on one’s arm is that sometimes it doesn’t take telling people for them to know).

She tells herself she doesn’t mind, she doesn’t need it. It’s not like she’s lived the most typical or compliant of lives. It’s not like she doesn’t enjoy being alone. She takes pride in moving freely through her life, causing trouble, tempting fate. What power does fate have over her now, anyway? She is the girl that fate forgot, and she and the other loose ends of the world with whom she associates have carved out their contentment to live that way. It’s not so bad. She’s not even lying about that. 

So it’s hard when she meets FitzSimmons. They’re some of the most famous soul mates in the world, and it’s easy to see why. They’re a power couple and a half, but also, they have the layers of a rivalry and a friendship and a deep, blossoming love. They’re taking their time because they know they can, and there’s a sweetness and a familiarity in the way they move around each other, and when Skye watches them her whole body sings. 

She feels like an instrument hearing its lone part in the context of the symphony for the first time. Like a magnet being pulled toward its opposite pole. But she’s the only one, she’s sure. FitzSimmons already have each other, and though she knows they have a Soul Mark anomaly, Skye is not vain enough to think she knows more about it than they do – and even if she did, she’s not brave enough to take the risk.

(Skye doesn’t mind being alone, but every time she’s reminded that she’s alone by force and not by choice, it makes her Mark-less soul ache just a little more. It reminds her of everything everyone’s ever said about her, done about her, every time they’ve skirted around her like her bare arms are some kind of disease. She’s destined to be alone, and lonely, and more than anything, she can’t bear to prove those people right.) 

So Skye lives her lonely life, vicariously, through FitzSimmons, watching how in love they are and how beautiful it is. They like her, she likes them. They get along. It’s not so bad. Most of the time, she’s not even lying about that. It just hurts to think, to let herself imagine, that maybe it could be something more. 

(And, unfortunately for Skye, this is not the only kind of pain she is destined to feel.)

-

Grief burns through her like a wildfire through brush. Her family has been dangled in front of her and ripped away and she’s left to pick through the remains. In shifts, Fitz and Simmons work quietly, diligently at her side, searching through Jiaying’s recovered belongings for notes and plans and finding along the way that she was undeniably a person. She had hopes and desires, fears and dreams. Most of them were for her little girl. The one standing beside them, her tears long since dry, even as she picks through her dead mother’s belongings; clothes and jewelry boxes, a calligraphy pen, old photographs. 

Quietly, Fitz whispers: “It’s Chinese.”

As if it’s only just occurred to him. All Skye can see is a flood of characters that speak to her but that she can’t read. Fitz, it seems, sees something else. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

He sprints off to find Jemma, because of course who else would one look for in times like these but one’s soul mate? And Skye is left alone with her broken heritage and she can’t blame him. In fact, she’s curious. She turns and looks at the notebook he’s abandoned. They’re the names of places. Families. The diner where she used to work. Her names: the ones she’s gone by - Mary-Sue, Skye – and the one her parents had given her. 

Daisy. 

Beside it there is a symbol she recognises; a set of symbols, really. She’s seen it, glimpsed it, a thousand times and she only has to blink to remember where. To know deep in her heart why Fitz has sprinted off the way he did.

Air floods her lungs and her body is forced into action too. Something, some inspiration is tugging at her bones and _this can’t be real_ but it can’t be worse than it is right now and so she runs – she runs after Fitz with her name clenched in her fist and a courage born of having nothing left to lose. Everything to gain. 

But the universe has one more twist in store for her yet.

Skye finds Fitz alone in the room with the Monolith. The words she longs to hear have died on his lips but he turns as she enters and his eyes are filled with such longing, such hope and such despair that she doesn’t speak either. Jemma is gone, that much is horrifyingly obvious, and Skye lets herself be wrapped in Fitz’s arms as grief after grief batters and strangles her.

“It’s you,” Fitz whispers, eventually, as the shock begins to fade. “Isn’t it? It’s you, it’s you, it’s you.” They cling to each other, cling to the words like they’re the only things each of them has left in this world. 

They’re not entirely wrong. 

-

Alone on the other side of the universe, Jemma strokes her finger over the letters of Fitz’s name, where it is etched into her skin. She dreads the day her Soul Marks will fade, like Will’s has: it marks the day there is no turning back. The moment Fitz dies, she will know. If she lets herself succumb to this place, he will know, and until that moment, he will be searching for her. Even now, she knows he is searching, and she wonders if that – in the end – will be what gets him killed.

“What’s the other one?” Will asks, from his place by the billycan they’ve set on the fire. He waves a finger at her, vaguely gesturing her wrist. “There’s Fitz, and another one. Or is that a real tattoo? Peace, or something?”

Jemma snorts, and comes to sit by the fire. It is warm here, and that’s some relief in her misery. Her hands are cold and slimey from digging through sunless earth for fungi and she is pleased to dry them off a little as she studies the indecipherable markings below Fitz’s name. 

“I don’t know,” she confesses, and sighs. “Fitz has one too, but we never figured it out. ‘s a good thing I suppose.”

“How’s that?” 

“Well, it means I still have a chance to get back and meet them, doesn’t it?” 

Will snorts, and rolls his eyes, and turns his attention back to the boiling billy. Jemma rolls her eyes back, figuring that he’s just annoyed by her optimism – or at least pretending as much - as per usual. Of course, part of his despondent irritation comes from the fact that as much as her names speak to her chances of going back, Will’s lack of names speaks to his. She doesn’t quite piece that part together until later. 

-

 

Later. 

When she’s lying miserable and sickly in her bed, and her limbs are heavy with grief and exhaustion. Still, Jemma is happy to be home. She is happy to be alive. She is happy that, no matter what has happened to her mystery soul mate, her family – such as it is – is safe and surrounds her with love. Fitz tells her that, when she’s ready, he has a special surprise for her. He’s figured out the symbols, he knows who their other soul mate is. She doesn’t have the energy to be as excited as she’d otherwise like, but the thought of solving this unending mystery, the insatiable curiosity, keeps Jemma up when she is supposed to be napping, and when there’s a knock at the door she feels her heart leap up into her chest.

Her body is not so cooperative, and she turns slowly, drawing a weary arm away from her face as her visitor pushes inside. It’s Skye, with a vase full of bright yellow flowers in her arms, a quiet little smile on her face.

Jemma smiles back because it’s thoughtful. She has sorely missed plant life and the sun, and colours other than endless dreary blue.

“Oh, Skye, thank you, they’re lovely-“ 

“It’s Daisy, actually.” 

“Right. Sorry.” 

“I was told you’re expecting me,” Daisy says, and it still hasn’t quite clicked. The flowers and the name on her wrist. “Fitz told me he’d talked to you about it? We were, um - going through my mother’s things. We found my name. My real name. It took me a while to get used to it but – it’s mine now. I’m Daisy. So – daisies.” 

Daisy flicks one half-heartedly, her body slowly seizing up. She’s hesitant to be more forward with her explanation, despite the fact that Jemma is taking longer than usual to catch on. There’s fear, which shouldn’t be surprising. This moment will, in some way or other, define the course of the rest of her life. There’s a little coyness too, knowing and curious to know. Part of her wishes she could take a picture of Jemma’s face the moment she figures it out. 

“Only, the thing is,” Daisy continues, with that smile. “My mother’s Chinese. Named me in Mandarin. _Ch_ _ùjù._ _”_

She takes the tiny florist’s card that’s perched amongst the daisies and turns it around, so that Jemma can see the message she has already written out. Jemma’s eyes trace the familiar lines, and she smiles at the starburst, and the realisation washes through her. It makes her limbs feel lighter. The breath moves in and out of her chest easier. Everything in the universe is falling into place. It feels inevitable; the way this was always supposed to feel, and the words spill out of her chest. 

“Oh,” she says. “It’s you.”


End file.
